Tag Archives: living abroad

Yesterday, April 4, I bought my airline ticket to the States. The countdown begins on the time I have left here in Panamá…Twenty days.

It”s also a countdown on how much longer THIS blog will continue. It’s mainly been about my life as an expatriate. (I hate it when people call it expatriot! That implies that a person was once patriotic but no longer is. The key part of the word is patriate, from the Latin Patria, or homeland).

When I return to the states I’ll be moving onto a small sailboat…

and, hopefully, making my way along the entire littoral of the Gulf of Mexico from Fort Myers, Florida to Brownsville, Texas.

Starting a new chapter in my life means I need to start a new blog to document it. I’ll provide a link later, but it’s going to be called “Another Good Adventure.”

Went into David (dah VEED) this morning and bought my ticket to the States. Leaving Monday, April 24th from Tocumen Airport (PTY) in Panamá City. Departure at 11:45 a.m. Arriving at Ft. Lauderdale at 3:48 p.m. EDT.

Sent off a wire transfer of funds to my friend in Ft, Lauderdale to buy the MacGregor sailboat in Miami.

Also sent a bit extra to pay for marina space for the rest of April rather than have it “on the hook” until I get up there….

And about THAT!

Went on line to see what it’s going to cost to get up to Ft. Lauderdale.

Spirit Airlines is supposed to be the cheapest, but they want $199 for a one way ticket from PTY (Tocumen). And then they CHARGE for every bag INCLUDING carry ons. Adding it up it came to $306 for what I plan on taking with me. PLUS, the flight doesn’t leave Panama until TWO IN THE MORNING!!! That’s A.M. folks. PLUS their seats don’t recline!

So, I went online again and looked at what it would cost to fly COPA which also flies into Ft. Lauderdale. Their price was $299. $7 cheaper than Spirit AND no charge for carry ons or the first two checked bags, AND their seats recline. Their flight leaves at 11:45 IN THE MORNING for the three hour flight!

Supposedly if you have “Jubilado” status (Jubilado roughly translates as “old fart”) you’re eligible for a discount on travel. I went on line and found a travel agent, Jose Palm, in David. Talked to him and explained what I was looking for and asked if there was a “Jubilado” discount.. It does, and he quoted me a ticket price of $241.14. I’m going to go to his office tomorrow morning.

Will be returning to the States either April 19th or the 26th. Don’t know which. Need to get rid of some stuff here like my bicycle and clothes washer, etc. What I’ll do is take the midnight bus from David to Panama. It gets in to Panama around 4:30 or 5. Take a cab out to Tocumen and wing my way back to Trumplandia….also known as “Murika”

So I’ve had butterflies in my stomach all day long. I’ve been talking about repatriating to the States for over a year. I’d hoped to be there last July, but the dentures delayed that, and then it moved from summer into fall and then into winter and I WASN’T going to go back up there in the winter even if it was to Ft. Lauderdale. Hell, back in ’76 when I was helping bring a big sailboat up from Key West it EFFIN’ SNOWED!!! Now the reality of picking up sticks and actually doing this thing has me a bit on edge. As they say, Talk’s Cheap. I think, well, I haven’t paid for the ticket yet and I suppose I could tell Stef not to pay Fernando and then the six yapping dogs at the house 30-feet away start going nuts and I try and picture how tranquil it will be anchored up at some small island off the coast of Florida or the barrier islands of the panhandle and I know I’m doing the right thing.

This morning I boarded the bus to go pay my February electric bill ($15.73 by the way). These aren’t “chicken buses,” either. They’re nice, air-conditioned 32-seat Toyota Coaster, like this:

I happened to get the last empty seat.

Across the aisle from me was a very attractive 20-something yacking away with her seat mate while unselfconsciously breast feeding her young infant. NO ONE was upset by this or paying the least attention. Unlike in the States where you get headlines like: “Video of Man Harassing Breast-feeding Mother at Target Goes Viral…” or: “Breastfeeding Mom Claims An Officer Threatened To Arrest Her…”

How to deal with uptight America…

There Are Assholes In Every Country

After going over to Bugaba to pay my light bill and pick up a couple of things I’d forgotten in yesterday’s marketing foray, I hoped on a bus from Frontera to get home. As we were getting close to El Cruce, where I get off to take another bus three kilometers up the hill to my house I gave the guy at the door a one Balboa coin… (These were originally called “Martinellis” after President Ricardo Martinelli who introduced the coins. He is now on the run and living in Miami due to corruption charges against him. Several of his cabinet members are sitting in prison as I write this, awaiting trial. Most people no longer call the coins “Martinellis” but instead refer to them as “Fugitivos.” You don’t even need to speak Spanish to figure out what THAT means.)

The “Pavo” it literally means “turkey” but that’s what the guys manning the door and taking care of the fares are called, gave me 35¢ in change. I said, “The fare is 50¢.”

“¿Que?” (What?)

English translation: “The fare from Bugaba to El Cruce with the jubilado discount is 50¢, not 65¢”

“Mumble, mumble, ¡Americano!” as he swapped out the dime with a quarter.

By now people around me were looking at us and I said, “Yes, I’m a gringo, but I’m also a resident in Panama. Would you like to see my cédula?” (A cédula is the national identification card all Panamanians an permanent resident aliens are issued.)

He declined, but as I was passing him as I got off the bus he muttered the word “Gringo.”

Over the last month, month and a half I’ve been having some serious breathing problems. I’ve been THIS CLOSE (-) to trying to get a cab to take me into the emergency room at Hospital Chiriqui, but that’s questionable at 3 a.m. But I’d do my deep breathing exercises and take a couple of hits off my inhaler and thing would eventually settle down.

But it made me wonder if there was anything else that could be done to alleviate the problem. Supplemental oxygen perhaps?

After a rough start to Monday morning I went into the hospital and set up an appointment to see Dr. Rodriguez who I’d seen before. I could have seen him yesterday if I hung around for four hours or so but decided to wait until this morning (Tuesday).

The appointment was for 10 a.m. The doctor showed up at !!:15. I was second on the list. I went through their routine quickie physical. My blood pressure was normal. ( I take lisinopril and Atenolol and it works fine.) One good note was that the last time I was there I weighted in at a hefty 173 lbs. A lot for me. Today I logged in at 155!

I was shocked when to doctor said it had been three years since I’d seen him. I would have guessed a year and a half, TOPS. I asked him about supplemental oxygen and he said that the little gizmo they put on your finger to read your heartbeat also registers blood/oxygen levels and mine supposedly is normal. He had the girl bring in another one and it read the same.

Okay, so supplemental oxygen isn’t needed.

Next I went in to breathe into a doo dad that measures lung capacity and some other stuff. Went through that and then was given three shots from some kind inhaler. After 20 minutes I went back and did the whole thing again.

Here’s where the good news comes in. The first time I did the tests three years ago the results were that my lung capacity was only 34% of normal. The doc said, today, that people with lungs like mine are usually dead by now.

The new results show a lung capacity of 48.69%. Certainly not great, but a 15% improvement over three years and shows response to treatment. I have to admit I’ve been slacking off on the meds a bit over the last few months. Since COPD, the initial diagnosis, is irreversible the diagnosis has been changed to “Chronic Bronchitis.” That’s nice even if it doesn’t make the breathing any easier. He wrote me a couple of new prescriptions. I’m continuing the Spiriva and adding addint Simbicort.

There was no reason given for the increase in phlegm, but it could possibly be the result of slacking off on the meds recently.

The visit, including the breathing tests clocked in at $110. Through my Hospital Chiriqui health plan I’ll get reimbursed 75% but, of course like all healthcare here it’s pay up front.

So I hied myself down to the pharmacy at the Romero supermarket. The Spririva costs $90.22 and the Simbicort is $83.15. However, with Panama’s generous discounts for seniors they knocked $34.67 off the $173.37 tab and I ended up paying $138.70.

It’s been an exciting week in what is normally a sleepy little town in western Chiriquí.

It started off on Monday with a visit to town by the President of the Republic, Juan Carlos Varela. It was to acknowledge a program that provides decent housing to the poor throughout the country. It’s called Techos de Esperanza (Roofs of Hope). It’s sort of Panama’s version of Habitat for Humanity. As I’ve said elsewhere in this blog, there are a lot of people living in what we in the States would consider to be “shacks.” Dirt-floor structures, split bamboo sides and rusty tin roofing.

It has been raining here in Panama for days on end which is extremely unusual, but it’s because of Tropical Storm Oscar off a tiny bit north of us in the western Caribbean. Interestingly, the rain stopped while Varela was in the covered basketball courts in the town park less than a 100 yards from my front door.

I heard a lot of noise next door. A ton of people milling around. I went out on the front porch to see what it was all about, and there was Varela sitting at my neighbor’s table enjoying a bite to eat before heading into David (dah VEED).

As soon as he finished and shook hands all around he got in his car and headed down the hill and it started to rain. I tried to get him to come back so I could bring the clothes that have been hanging out on the back porch for nearly a week trying could finally be brought inside. They’re still out there.

There was a short break in the weather Tuesday morning so I made a mad dash into the city to do some grocery shopping and pay a couple of bills. I didn’t pay the electric bill last month since it was never delivered, but I got an e-bill this month. Had to go pay arrears. Two month’s electric bill came to $31.39. Eat your hearts out gringos of the Great White North.

When I got home, around 3:00 in the afternoon I saw this sign that had just been put up while I was absent…

For those of you who are monoglots (great word, eh?) It’s announcing the sixth stage of Panama’s equivalent of theTour de France coming up on Wednesday. (Doesn’t everyone spell Wednesday out in their heads as they write it down?) Oh, yeah, and I was only in the house for about ten minutes before it started pouring again.

Around 8 a.m. the teams started arriving and getting ready for the race…

The finish line set up near the town hall…

Policeman directing traffic away from the finish area and doing it in the rain….

The leaders sprint to the finish about three and a half hours after the start…And it’s ALL uphill from El Cruce three kilometers away at the InterAmericana Highway…

About five minutes later the pelotón showed up to finish…

As far as I know nothing else is happening of any note this week. Next Monday, though, celebrates Panama’s SECOND Independence Day but I believe all the parades and hoopla are taking place elsewhere.

I LOVE Panama, and, in general, I love the Panamanian people. BUT sometimes it’s REALLY hard to do. In fact, sometimes it’s IMPOSSIBLE.

Take this past week, for instance. This was the 249th anniversary of the founding of the little town of Boquerón, and they were making a huge deal out of it.

The festivities started off on Wednesday. Around noon the first of the parade started by my house. Several of my neighbors from the old house came by with stools to sit on my porch and watch. It was the best parade they’ve had here in Boquerón in the five plus years I’ve lived here. This time there were a lot of floats and this time a lot of thought, care and originality was evidenced in them.

The first actual band that came by and even stopped in front of my house was from Colegio Daniel Octavio Crespo in nearby Concepcion. Most of what passes for marching music here in Panama are simply drums and once in a great while there will be a glockenspiel. It seems that Panamanians love pounding on things with sticks. But here we had an actual BAND complete with clarinets, saxophones and one lonely flute.

I used to play flute when I was in high school. Me and my four brothers were REQUIRED to take music lessons. About 6 years ago I bought a flute down here in David (dah VEED) but as my COPD developed I lost interest in trying to use an instrument I had to blow into and it has remained unused for the last three or four years. I put it up for sale at about half the price I paid for it on a local buy/sell Facebook site and got absolutely ZERO responses even after it had been posted and bumped up several times.

Looking at that lone flute in the Crespo band gave me an idea. I went inside and grabbed the flute and then went to the band’s director and gave it to him and told him to make sure some kid who couldn’t afford to buy an instrument for themselves got it. His thanks were profuse and he had his assistant take a photo of us and the flute together. Who knows, I might have changed some kids whole life by giving that flute away.

That night at the covered basketball court about 100 yards from my house the very popular Manuel “Nenito” Vargas and Las Plumas Negros (The Black Feathers) was playing. I went up and watched for about an hour and then returned home, stuck some plugs in my ears and went to sleep.

Thursday was sort of a rest-up day to prepare for the weekend. Now here’s where it gets bad. After a night time parade filled with drum and bugle bands some asshole with a van full of speakers opened the van’s back doors and started playing music with such volume and with such wide open bass that everything in my house shook and vibrated. The ear plugs helped only a tiny bit but there’s nothing you can do about the bass. This FUCKING LASTED UNTIL 3:30 IN THE MORNING!!! And it isn’t even really music. There’s NO MELODY involved. No one can dance to this shit! It is, pure and simple, JUST NOISE and it seems that the majority of Panamanians LOVE IT!

If you want to be a mindless, uncaring, self-centered piece of shit, I say, go park you van in front of YOUR HOUSE and play like that.

Then comes Saturday night. Some idiotic twatwaffle with a car full of speakers parked on the same corner and started the same shit again. But then it got EVEN WORSE. Directly across the street came THREE CARS AND A VAN loaded with speakers and each one seemed to be in competition as to who could be the most obnoxious asshole in the bunch. Literally everything in my house was vibrating.

I couldn’t stand it and so I threw my iPad and my telephone that holds my audio books into my knapsack and locked the house. A cab passed by in less than a minute and took me down to El Cruce where I caught a bus into the city less than five minutes later and went to my harbor of refuge over the years, Bambu Hostel where I was able to get a bed for $11 for the night. This is where I slept.

I woke up at 6:30, which is actually about an hour and a half later than I normally get up. Walked the couple of blocks to the bus stop and hopped on the bus that dropped me off, literally, at my doorstep.

A nearby neighbor stopped by on his way to the little tienda and told me the stupid assholes didn’t stop the noise until FIVE FUCKING THIRTY this morning!!! It was worth the 50 cents for the ride to El Cruce, the $11 for the bed, the buck for the frosty bottle of Balboa and the $1.20 round trip bus ride. Plus instead of being blasted by the morons with their car loads of speakers, I spent a couple of hours talking to a couple from France and an American who has lived in Sweden for the last 15 years and who, with his girlfriend has been riding their bicycles from Mexico City and are on their way to Panama as I’m writing this.

Some Panamanians will ask if the loud music like these assholes play and everyone else endures doesn’t happen in the United States. The answer is, NO IT DOESN’T! And there are reasons for it. There are noise laws everywhere in the States and the police will come and shut things down if there are complaints. Nothing like that happens here. All of this went on within ONE BLOCK of the police station.

Another reason it doesn’t happen is because if it’s NOT shut down some pissed of person with a FUCKING GUN will come out and shoot up the speakers and then will shoot the assholes who are responsible. That’s the ONLY TIME I condone gun violence.

Anyway, the festival is over. The food stalls that surrounded the town park are being dismantled and tonight should be back to normal…At least I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will…